


Irony of fate

by Veralynn



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Down and Out Draco Malfoy, Falling In Love, Family Loss, Gay Sex, Hiding, Homelessness, Humiliation, Hurt Draco Malfoy, M/M, Poverty, Prison, Prostitution, References to Depression, Rough Sex, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-25
Updated: 2020-10-19
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:21:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26104885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Veralynn/pseuds/Veralynn
Summary: When I open my eyes, I see two green irides. They shine . I don’t know why I recognize them so easily. Potter.A second after I  thought the name of  Potter, I  realize his  mouth is on my mouth. My second  thought: Potter is an awful kisser. Third thought: How the fuck did I end up kissing Potter?And fourth and last thought: I’m alive.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 23





	1. How did I end up kissing Potter?

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [L'ironia del destino](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/674128) by Vera Lynn. 



> I'm doing that again. Trying to translate my story from Italian. So again, sorry for all the mistakes I'll make. Feel free to correct my grammar, I'll be happy of that! And thanks for reading :)

I’m drowning in a ministerial toilet. A never-seen-before guy’s keeping my head down with just one hand and he curiously manages to also kicking my kneeling body.  
The spurts of blood coming up in my throat get lost in the stagnant slurry of water, urine and shit.  
It’s also curious how few taste the irony of fate shows when it decides about our destiny. As in a badly written book, it is July 5th. I’m turning 20 today. And happy birthday.  
Throwing up is an automatic reflex and as my glottis shot my lungs quickly fill with dark slime and I understand: I’m dying.  
I get no movie of my life, no thought about the relativity of existence, there’s only time for a quick flash of understanding, and for an instant memory of my identity, identity that was lately passing through a considerable crisis: but now, for a moment, I know who I am, and what I’m doing. I’m Draco Malfoy, I lived exactly 20 years, and I’m about to end my existence drowned in a ministerial toilet by an animal that’s probably very close to be a half-giant.  
And happy birthday, Draco.

When I open my eyes, I see two green irides. They shine. I don’t know why I recognize them so easily. Potter.  
A second after I thought the name of Potter, I realize his mouth is on my mouth. My second thought: Potter is an awful kisser. Third thought: How the fuck did I end up kissing Potter?  
And fourth and last thought: I’m alive.  
I need a moment to get that Potter isn’t kissing me, is performing mouth to mouth resuscitation, and he actually just saved my life.  
I sit so fast my forehead hits Potter’s nose. With a glance I notice that the guy who tried to kill me lies in a corner, passed out or, more likely, Stunned, and that Potter’s tendency to dance on paradoxes isn’t changed a bit because, even if his nose is bleeding, he’s smiling at me.  
Before even thinking about it, I step back until I’m back to the wall, my arms protecting my headand body. The smell makes me gag and I turn and throw up. The stuff coming from my mouth is worringly red, and my eyes are watering for the effort or maybe for the relief. Then my eyes are back on Potter. He doesn’t smile anymore, but he speaks in a gentle way.  
“I think your ribs are broken,” he says.  
I can’t find anything clever to say. I just stare at him from the corner of the wall and he seems bitter when he asks: “Are you afraid of me?”  
I’m so surprised that I stay silent again. Then I realize my body language and I try to relax. It’s an involuntary reflex, It comes naturally to me, but I don’t say it.  
“Three years since we’ve seen last time,” Potter says, like it’s pertinent and like this time there could be something clever I could answer. I feel like an idiot but I cannot say nothing. Potter tries again:  
“Where have you been?”  
“A-around.” I stutter, in order to say something and stop looking like a moron.  
Potter stares at me from head to foot. I feel his eyes on me like hands. Suddenly he frowns, then he looks away and gestures to the guy on the floor. “I’ll take care of him, don’t worry.”  
I find strange that he doesn’t ask what’s happen. Everyone in the last years thinks I retroactively deserve any shit today’s fool decides to do against me.  
I speak before I think that non-requested self justification is an equivalent of covering my ass and usually who covers his ass, in other people’s opinion, do that because he’s in the wrong.  
“Potter, I swear I don’t know this guy. I swear.”  
“There’s no need, Malfoy.”  
A strange alchemy is created. I can sense it. He’s been nice to no task me to explain or justify me - the majority of people thinks that I should just kneel begging forgiveness for the fact I’m born to whoever I meet on the street – but there’s more. The fact he used my name breaks a bit the ice between us.  
We stared at each other and understand there’s nothing else we could say without exposing ourselves - all this Not Said is becoming so heavy and dripping on us like tar – so Potter nods and goes to the door, and he’s already to the doorstep when he turns and says: “Happy birthday.”  
That means: it’s been centuries since the time we hated each other in school, but I remember when is your birthday, because evidently I already knew it ages ago, and something changed – something important – because I’d never thought to wish you luck, but now I’m exposing myself.  
And I look at him and say: “Thank you.”

That means: it’s been centuries since the time we hated each other in school, but you just did me mouth to mouth resuscitation when my face was covered in shit, and you didn’t ask questions, and something changed – something important – because I’d never thought to thank you about anything, but now I’m exposing myself.  
And the Not Said this time is colorful and shining, and we’re both astonished.


	2. The things I’ve learnt

It’s not the first time I see Potter at the Ministry, but it’s the first time he sees me. I’m alway very careful during the day. It’s by night that I come out and I wonder through the Ministry and I learn things. About people I know and people I don’t know. Things I like to learn, things I’d prefer to ignore.

In the bin of the private toilet of the Minister there are always used condoms after employment meetings. After the missions, there are Firewhiskey bottles in the bins of the majority of the Aurors. Third floor’s secretary yesterday tore apart like one hundred pictures of a boy and threw them in the trash. And the grumpy men of the Magical Creature Control Department, a month ago, received thousands of condolence cards for his son’s loss. He threw all of them in the trash, and then he saw me emptying the bins – I wasn’t careful enough at the beginning and he beat the hell out of me. I took the beatings. The man’s son was dead after a long agony for a curse casted by, guess who? Lucius Malfoy. I took the beatings. I deserved it.

I also know stupid things. I know Granger likes liquorice – she eats even two or three packets a-day. I know she secretly reads Cosmopolitan and then she throws it away like she has committed a mortal sin. I know Weasley eats industrial quantities of crunchie peanut butter and crumbles everywhere – miserable he was, miserable he is. And I know Potter drinks Gatorade and Red Bull and eats two Mars a-day. I know he smokes twenty six cigarettes during the day – Lucky Strike, ultra-compact. I know he has an awful calligraphy and sometimes he writes the same letters two or three times just to make them readable. I know he masturbates on gay pornography magazines - just once I found one, buried under a lot of papers. I know he likes bananas and he can eat even four or five bananas in a day. I know he throws away untouched packets of paroxetine pills and sealed Anti-Depression Potion vials.  
I know a lot about Harry Potter. I know that, if Weasley and Granger and the majority of the dependents keep on their desks the pictures of their family, Potter keep on his desk dead people’s pictures. There’s a picture of his parents – the man in the picture looks identical to Potter – one of Colin Creevey, one of Sirius Black, one of Tonks and Lupin, one of Fred Weasley, one of Moody, Potter’s desk is full with pictures of people smiling and moving and dead. There is almost everybody Potter knew that died in the War, except for Death Eaters, obviously. 

Sometimes I wonder, if I died during the war, would my picture be on his desk too?  
But then I tell myself that it’s a stupid thought and anyway the answer is no, I am a Death Eater.

Potter is always the last to go home, so I must wait to clean his office and I start with the bathrooms. There are eighteen bathrooms in this part of the Ministry so I’m busy till one p.m./ two p.m, that is the time in which Potter usually goes home, and then I clean his office, and then I’m done too and I go to sleep.

I think for the majority of people would be hard to imagine me as a janitor cleaning bloody toilets – it would be hard for me till some years ago - but it’s such a stupid and easy task that anybody could do that. It sucks, obviously - people sucks, they’re dirty in indecent ways – but it’s still better than living on the streets or whoring yourself to climb up the socials stair. Pansy now goes hand in hand with an Auror and yes she has a home and she can go to restaurants and things like that, but I wonder, how does she feel when she sucks his dick? Not that I judge her, I don’t care, she’s doing well, but she’s been a bitch to me and it hurted. I asked her to go out for a coffee as I was going crazy being alone all the time and she accepted just to tell me that it was better to close our friendship as she was in love with an Auror and he wouldn’t approve for her to see me. And I said nothing and I thought at when she was thirteen, declairing her love to me, how beautiful she was, I thought that we were meant to marry one day, I thought, how many lies you tell yourself, Pansy, when you’re ashamed, and I thought, but how do you feel, Pansy, when you suck his dick?

But I said nothing. I’m no one to judge – i’ve had an hard time and did worse thing than sucking someone’s dick for some social prestige – so I said her I understood and kiss kiss and goodbye.  
And then it happened something strange, for the first time I felt lucky, lucky to have this fucking job, and then I cleaned all the bathrooms humming, and when Potter left I cleaned Potter’s office, and when I finished cleaning Potter’s office I curled up under his desk and I cried.

Sometimes I think I’m lucky to be alive, sometimes I think this is a shitty life and I’m slowly losing my mind and I should go, but go where?  
After that Period, I’ve got no intentions to travel without money, risking to end on the street. I don’t wanna end on the street, never more. I’m saving my money, but I’m not sure for what. Maybe to leave. Maybe to stay. Maybe because I have no idea how to spend it. I don’t pay rent as money is not enough for rent. I sleep here at the Ministry. I don’t go out for dinner and I don’t go out for anything, I prefer to eat what remains in the big cafeteria’s trays before I clean them. It isn’t so bad, and I’ve never been greedy, so it’s okay. But who am I kidding? That’s not the reason. The reason is as soon as I’m out, there’s the risk – oh, not the risk, the certainty - that someone beat me. Hard. So it’s better to remain as invisible as possible. It’s fine. There’s a lot of work, and I’m alone, and when I’m done I’m tired and I just want to rest. I shower in the Aurors’ gym and I choose a book – there’s plenty of books here - and I read a few lines and sleep. It’s fine. I woke up at 4 a.m. and I work for four hours. At 8 a.m I sleep again till the end of the lunchbreak and then I go cleaning the cafeteria and it takes me two hours, then I clean the gym and the showers and then I have a wank and I sleep again till the Ministry is closed and then I start working again. It’s fine. It’s not fine. It’s shit, and I steal Potter’s pills from the garbage, I treasure them and I take two pills at once. But it’s useless, and makes things worse, as it makes me dependent from something I cannot get on regular basis, and it makes me impotent, which is tragic, because that fucking wank is the apex of my day.

So I’ve got some money I don’t spend. I’m afraid to spend it and then having nothing. Money. Money. Money. It was fucking important before, when it wasn’t actually important, and it is fucking important now. I don’t wanna end on the street again. I don’t.

The guy that gave me this job is one of the many that beat me just because I existed. I was hooking on a corner near the Ministry, it was winter and I desperately needed money. I already did that to have money to eat, but it disgusted me so much I promised myself: never again, never again, Draco. I ate from the trash and I begged for leftovers in the restaurants. But it was summer.

Now it was winter and it was cold. And I was learning that cold can be terrible, even worse than pain or hunger. I needed a fucking coat. I needed money to buy a fucking coat, a warm coat. And so I went to that corner near the Ministry, and I sold myself.  
Maybe I should just turn my face to the wall and die. It would be more dignified. Instead I stayed there waiting, in a summer shirt like the sluttest whore. I didn’t have any other clothes, that was the reason, but it didn’t change nothing. I waited. I waited. It was getting dark.

The cold was terrible, it was alienating. My lungs ached. I started coughing and spitting on the ground – I couldn’t resist, even if I figure someone spitting phlegm isn’t so sexy for anyone.  
I was dying while trying to sell my body, half naked in an icy street, but I continued to smile and wink to all the men passing nearby. I don’t know how I did it. I don’t know if I should esteem or despise myself for that.  
I smiled and winked. I smiled and winked.  
Till a man stopped there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll be really glad for any reviews! :)


	3. How did I end up here

I had the feeling I knew him.

Fat. Ugly. Sweaty and not-so-clean. Dirty brown hair, butcher’s hand. And above all, he had a coat that seemed really warm.

I didn’t remember his name, but he remembered mine.

“Malfoy?!”

He spat on the ground. I didn’t have the time to answer as he hit me hard in the face. I hit the wall and fell. Blood dropped in my mouth.

“Hogwarts?” I asked.

“Hufflepuff. Ernie Macmillan.”  
Learning Hufflepuff names had never been an activity worth my attention. I shrugged.  
“Do you turn tricks now?” He laughed, loud mouthed. It serves you right, his eyes said. “Would somebody actually pay to have sex with you?”

It isn’t sex, I wanted to say. That’s people who like playing ruthlessly on someone else’s body. People who like violent games. People who like to win. They want me so they can do what they cannot do to any other whore.

Instead I said: “I’ll blow you if you give me your coat.”

He looked interested. “Not sure a blow is enough. This is a wonderful coat.”  
Fuck off, I thought, but I didn’t say it.

“You can fuck me.” I whispered.

“Yes, now we’re talking. Where?”

“Dunno. Here?”

“Don’t you have a place where you bring your clients?”

“No.”

“Well, you must have a place to live. Let’s go there.”

“No.”

  
“Why not?”

“I don’t have a place to live, Macmillan."

Macmillan was embarrassed. He hesitated and kicked my leg. “Fuck, no deal. I can’t take you to my house, my wife is th…”

I interrupted him. Bloody hell, if I think about that I really disgust myself. “We can find a public toilet. I don’t know. There should be a toilet at the Ministry. But maybe it’s closed.”

“Oh, good idea. Yes it’s closed but that’s not a problem for me.” Macmillan smiled and took some keys from his pocket. “I work there. I am an Administrator at the Public Service.” He pompously precised.

I didn’t have a fucking idea of what an Administrator at the Public Service could be and I couldn’t care less.

“Okay. Let’s go.”

Macmillan turned and I followed him. The Ministry was dark and close, except some windows still enlightened. We entered from a secondary door and he lead me to a gym. He turned the light on, there were thin blue gym mattresses in a corner. I unbuttoned my shirt.

“Stop,” he said, and I stopped.

“What?”

“You stink. I won’t touch you in this state.”

I just stared at him, waiting, with no embarrass at all. I knew I was dirty. What the fuck he expected me to do? A Cleaning Charm?

“I’m wandless,” I said.

“Oh, I don’t think a Cleaning Charm would be enough. I want you to take a shower.”  
I smiled. “Can I?” A warm coat and a shower. The quickie was more profitable than expected.  
Macmillan took me to the showers and just stood there. I undressed myself. He winced. Everybody winced when they saw me naked, even the ones who beat me. I wasn’t a good sight. I turn on the water. It was cold. I felt like a psychiatric inmate. He stared at me.

I washed myself. I was shivering for the cold. My lungs were hurting like hell. Every cough was a torture. Macmillan threw me a towel. I took it and dried myself. Walking towards him, I tripped. I look at my toes. Two were black for the cold. I felt afraid, I would lose my toes?

“I’m ready,” I whispered standing up and coughing again.

“Do you have pneumonia?”

I shrugged. I kneeled and unzipped his trousers. I felt his eyes like hunting dogs on me. Analyzing any cut, any bruise, any scar on my skin. I knew he was looking at the Mark. His dick was limp, I took it in my mouth and I started sucking it. No reaction, and that scared me. Sometimes the ones that could not get hard got angry and hit me. Because it was my fault, that I could not made them hard, or maybe they were just angry and hit me because I was there and they could do that. I tried to do it better and my forehead hit his crotch. I felt his sweaty hand on my face.

“You’ve got fever,” he said.

I didn’t know what he expected me to answer. I keep on blowing him, with no reaction, until he said: “Stop it.”

I stopped.

He light up a cigarette. “You’re a terrible whore, Malfoy.”

Fuck off Draco, I thought, now you’re completely wet and there will be no coat, say hello to Ms Death because you’re gonna die from exposure tonight and all because you aren’t even capable to do a fucking blow job.

“I’m sorry, I…”  
“Dress up.”

“I can try again and…”

“Dress up.”

I obeyed. Now I just wanted to escape before he beat me again. I waited for him to stand.

But he didn’t. He just sat and looked at me.

“I always knew you were a pouf, but…” he hesitated. “You don’t like it, isn’t it?”

Was he talking about his cock? I shook my head. “No worse than others.”

“No, I meant… do it. Do it this way.”

I swallowed. Yes, it was true. What I should do? I nodded, without looking at him.

“So why do you do it?”  
I hesitated. “…cold.” I said.

“And why don’t you find a normal job? Or beg for alms? Anything is more dignified than…”

Surprising even myself, I suddenly laughed. I gestured to my left arm. “Nobody would give me a job, Macmillan. Or alms.”  
“You’re ill.”

“And I also am Draco Malfoy.” I closed my eyes. I couldn’t keep on. He was too humiliating. I decided I was going, even if he could gert angry. “Ok. It was a lovely conversation. If you don’t want to fuck, I’d be glad to go.”

“Where?”

I shrugged. “Outside.”

“It’s… snowing.”

I stared at him. What the fuck do you want me to answer, Ernie Macmillan?

“You’ll die if you sleep on the streets tonight.”

 _I’m wishing to_ , I thought, but I said nothing.

“You really are in a bad way, Malfoy.”

Merlin, it is terrible to admit, but I really made an effort to not cry in front of him. Maybe it was the fever but my chin was trembling. I was about to explode. I could not take anything anymore, I just wanted to go away. To die in the snow, fuck off, I hated everyone and myself. To live. Why? I hit the last low and started digging.

But I did it. My voice did not shake.

“No, I’m doing fantastic, don’t you see?”

Macmillan sadly laughed. Hufflepuffes. All good in the end. All with a fucking moral law.

“I can find you something.” He spat out.

“What do you mean?”

“A job. A shitty job, but you’re desperate.”

So tactful, the Hufflepuffes. “What kind of job?”

“I told you I am Administrator at the Public Service.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

He sighed. “I manage the Ministry expenses. Meals, cleaning, employers’ facilities, things like that.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m a bit in the shit right now, as there isn’t much money and I should fire someone. There are some expenses I can’t cut. Like cleaning. The company that takes care of that costs a lot of money.”

“So?”

“So if I find someone that could do this cleaning, for a quarter of that price, I could save some people from getting fired. The price of the company is 800 sickles for a month.”

“So it would be 200 sickles.”

“It’s nothing, I know. But you can… eat at the cafeteria, and…”

“Can I sleep here?”

He thought about that. “If you are careful not to be seen, for me you can. But I don’t know where you could sleep. You cannot sleep in the offices or in the hallways, someone could see you and…”

“I can sleep in the bathroom.”

“In the bathroom?”

I shrugged. “I’d be awake before anyone could notice.”

“But you can’t leave anything there. Where do you sleep? On the floor?”  
I thought about it. “If I can have a little locker, it’s enough for me.”

“A little locker?”

“Like the school lockers. Metal. Grey. You can lock it with a key. It may look like a locker for the cleaning stuff, or something like that.”

“Well, it can be arranged. But… you’d sleep on the floor.”

“May I take a pair of those blue mattresses from the gym?”

Macmillan hesitated. I think he didn’t really thought I’d accept. “Malfoy, it’s a shitty job. With impossible working hours, and a miserable wage. And I’d prefer nobody sees you. It’s not exactly legal.”

“May I take a pair of those blue mattresses from the gym?”

He understood. “Yes.” He said.

“For my salary?”

“At the end of the month. I’ll put a fake corporation name on your paycheck. Like, I dunno, DM S.p.a.”

“DM S.p.a.?”

“If someone notice something, we can say you have a cleaning company.”

Wonderful. A dream coming true.

“All right.”

“Is it?”

“Yeah, all right.” I hesitated. “Thanks.”

He said nothing. He explained the job to me and he gave me the keys.

And that’s how I ended up here. You know the rest of the story. After some time, I got distracted. I was late cleaning a fucking toilet and that enormous guy stepped in and saw me. Asked me how the fuck it was possible I wasn’t rotting in Azkaban and beat the shit out of me. He almost broke my arm pushing it behind my back and yelling that he knew the right place for a piece of shit. And then he forced my head in the toilet and kept me there until I passed out, and then Potter arrived and saved my life.

And happy birthday Draco.  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's so hard for me to translate it in English :D Please if you enjoy, or even if you don't, leave a comment! You'll make me the happiest person in the world! Thank you <3


	4. Draco Malfoy is back in town

I should sleep now and then clean the cafeteria after the lunch, but I heard Weasley asking Granger if they were going for lunch with Potter, so I thought I could do something to thank him.   
I go out and I buy some bars of Mars, bottles of Gatorade and cans of Red Bull, and three packets of Lucky Strike. I go then behind the cafeteria and I take some bananas and an empty box. I put everything into the box and I bring that in Potter’s office. I put on that a card on which I’ve written “Thank you.”

It is late, almost 9 p.m. I’m cleaning the showers. A big silver stag appears behind me. He’s a Patronus and from his cocky look, I’d bet my balls he’s Potter Patronus. He has a message for me. “It’s not my birthday but yours. I’m sure you’re busy, but if you aren’t I’d be glad to offer you a dinner. If you’d like it, we can meet at back door in twenty minutes. There are things to say.”  
Things to say. Oh, how unnecessarily (or maybe necessarily) blatant and melodramatic you are, Potter. And how immediately recognizable.   
I’m done with the showers. I go to my locker and I take the envelope with all the money I saved. I steal a white jacket from the cafeteria and I go to the exit.  
Potter is waiting for me. He’s smoking. And he’s alone, thanks God.  
“Malfoy,”  
“Potter.”  
He wears black trousers and a white shirt. No necktie. That’s the maximum of formality they got from him, but still, he’s elegant. For a moment I’m ashamed of my worn out blue t-shirt and tattered jeans. And of the jacket.  
“Why have you got that chef jacket?”  
“Why have you got that Potter face?  
He giggles. “I liked it, at the shop.”  
I laugh. “My jacket was stained, couldn’t find anything else to change in.”  
“Listen, it was you sending me the pack?”  
“What pack? Listen, it was you sending me the Patronus?”  
“What Patronus?”  
We sneer. “Anyway, my answer is no.”  
He’s suddenly sad. “No?”  
“No, you won’t offer me the dinner. It’s my birthday. The dinner’s on me.”  
He lights up. He’s so fucking transparent. That’s sweet.  
“No way, I’ll pay.”  
“Where do you plan to go?”  
“There’s a cute rustic restaurant in Diagon Alley.”  
“A cute rustic restaurant? It’s on me, Potter. We’ll go to the Merlin.”  
Draco Malfoy is back in town. I’ll waste all my precious money offering Potter a dinner in the best restaurant of the Magic London. And so be it.  
Potter is surprised, but he says nothing. We start walking – the restaurant is near the Ministry, sparing me the humiliation of explaining why I can’t Apparate. We’re silent and he smokes and everybody’s looking at us. They look at me and then at him and then they look elsewhere. He notices. But he says nothing. I say nothing. At the Merlin there’s a waiter more elegant than the two of us and he looks at me as I’m some kind of insect under his shoe, but he says nothing. And he does nothing. That’s the Merlin, asshole, you cannot put up a fight and beat up people here. We have no reservation, but the name ‘Potter’ opens every door these days. Once it was the name ‘Malfoy’, I think for a second. But nostalgy is self-destructive so I just step in and face reality. Potter smiles shyly. He’s the rich one, he’s the hero, but he’s not comfortable in a place like this. The waiter leads us in a separate room – I know what he thinks, what everybody’s thinking, but he’s fine – and we order. Potter listen to my ordination and then he looks at the waiter and he says: “The same.”  
Once I would mock him for this, but now I find it so sweet I must look elsewhere because he’d see I’m about to cry.  
Nobody can see us here. Potter asks about my job.”  
“I’ve got a company,” I whisper. “D.M. S.p.a.”  
“What’s that about?”  
“Public service,” I say.  
“For that you were at the Ministry?”  
“Yeah. Are you working there?”  
“I’m doing the Auror stage. Paperwork, mostly. But I bet you know. You left the pack. Listen, Malfoy… about that pack…”

His eyes are like knives.  
“… how did you know so much about me?”  
Fuck. What I had in mind? Idiot, idiot, idiot. What can I possibly answer?  
“I’m a wizard,” I sneer and shrug. If not for the fact I’m wandless and Tracked and can’t do any magic, even the involuntary ones, that’s true.  
He laughs.   
I smile.  
He raises the glass to toast. “Happy birthday!” He says.  
“Cheers,” I answer, and I drink.

“So, Potter, are you enjoying fame? What do you do these days?”  
He smiles. “Don’t you read tabloids? It seems I’m going buck wild and dating six different women.”  
“Six? Are there six female creatures in the big planet Earth that would sleep with you? Oh, my.”  
He laughs. Such a sweet laugh. “Those are journalist’s fantasies. I’m gay, Malfoy.”  
He says that with such green eyes and a confidence so strong I cannot pretend I’m not interested.  
“And you are confessing it to me this way?”  
“Oh, we’ve both been through enough that we won’t care about such a thing, Malfoy, don’t pretend to be scandalized.”  
“Well, I’m still a fucking pureblood, Potter, in my world homosexuality is considered a disease to be treated.”   
“A disease to be treated?” He laughs again. Maybe it’s the wine, but I’m starting to love this sound.  
“Yes. There are special potions. Does your beloved Weasley know that you’re gay?”  
“Special potions?”  
“Do not avoid my question.”  
“Yes. He had a bad reaction, but it was because he thought I was kidding with his sister.”  
“Yeh, right. He had a bad reaction, because he’s a fucking racist faggot like me.”  
He giggles. “No, Ron’s surely not gay, but yes, he may be a little racist. In a good way.”  
“Racist in a good way, questionable concept.”  
“By the way, what do you mean by a racist faggot like me?”  
“I never denied I am racist, and not in a good way.”  
“Are you gay?”  
“…”  
“…”  
“I don’t know.”  
“What does it means, I don’t know? Are you going through an identitary crisis?”  
I laugh. And I hate this sound. It’s such a fake laugh, expecially in comparison with his laugh. “Less or more. When I was younger, I surely was gay.”  
On his face for a second there’s an emotion I can’t define. “And then what happened? Did you fall in love with a woman?”  
“Yes,” I answer, trying to be as serious as possible. “I was in love with professor Cooman. We consumed a secret love.”  
“WHAT?”  
I laugh. “Your face was priceless.”  
“Idiot. Who?”  
And now? There’s no real answer. “Pansy,” I lie.  
“Ah. Are you two still together?”  
“No.”   
He lights up. Potter, Potter, my God, you really are an open book.  
A moment of silence. And then he said something about the Ministry, and we start talking about economics and monuments. And I can’t follow a single word, and I can only look at his eyes and lips, and our mouths talk and talk about the statue of Nicolas Flamel, but we are slipping in a silent courting ritual. There’s a bit of sadness in his eyes and in my voice, but there’s also something else, a light, a spark of hope. I feel a sense of excitement I didn’t felt in months. I feel alive. And I suddenly know that I’m about to do something very very stupid, and that I cannot calculate consequences. But I don’t care. Everything’s so embarassing and beautiful, and I’m shaking. Past is hard and hard is present, but looking at his eyes I feel that future could still be interesting. My heart beats fast as I laugh for a joke he made. I didn’t listen to it. I laugh just to make him happy, and because I’m happy. For real. Of an irrational, crazy happiness. And it’s so sweet.


End file.
